Two days after a senior government official said Spain's accessto debt markets was closed, the Treasury beat its 2 billion-eurotarget ($2.5 billion) at a bond sale, easing concern aboutfinancing the region's third-biggest budget deficit.

Spain sold its benchmark 10-year bond to yield 6.044 percent,the most since Nov. 17, when the yield in the secondary marketreached a euro-era record 6.78 percent. Demand for the security was3.29 times the amount sold, higher than at the previous auction inApril. In the secondary market Spain's 10-year bond yield fell 12basis points to 5.679 percent.

The auction results were “pretty decent overall and the marketappears eminently comfortable with the outcome,” said John Davies,a fixed-income strategist at WestLB AG in London. “A tad above thetop end of the target volume range obviously looks good, but Ithink the more encouraging factor was that the 2022 bond came at6.04 percent, so safely below levels prevailing in the secondarymarket.”